The First Step

Published:Vperyod, No. 11, March 23 (10), 1905.

      Published according to the text inVperyod.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Foreign Languages Publishing House,1962,

      Moscow,Volume 8,

      pages239-244.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Isidor LaskerTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Knock,and it shall be opened unto you, we said after reading the Party
Council’s resolution of March 10, 1905, inIskra, No. 91. No sooner had
the news of the Council’s resolution of March 8, 1905, and our answer in issue
No. 10 ofVperyod[1]reached Russia, than we find ourselves confronted
with a remarkable new change of front on the part of the Council, a change for
which we can only congratulate our comrades of the newIskrawith all
our heart and wish them to take a further step in the same direction.

TheCouncil’s resolution of March 10 addresses itself to the participants at the
Third Party Congress that is being convened by the Russian Bureau, proposing
that the Congress accept the mediation of the German Party and of Bebel to wards
restoring Party unity, and expresses the Council’s consent to send two
representatives to the Congress for talks on implementing the idea of
arbitration.

Intaking this first step“on the new path”, the Council,
of course, could not help employing some of its old methods; it could not help
repeating an untruth, the inherent absurdity of which we exposed inVperyod, No. 10, namely, that the Congress, which is being called by a
majority of the Russian committees, is not a Party Congress, but that “an
insignificant group of Party members” wants “to force its decisions on the real majority of the Party”. These ruses would be pathetic
were they not so ridiculous, and we should not care to dwell on them again, all
the more so since our attention now is naturally drawn to the new step taken by
theCouncil, which at last (at long last!) has realised the importance of the Party
      Congress as a means of resolving the Party crisis and has finally made the
      first, albeit feeble, timid, and inconsistent attempt—but still an
      attempt—to look at things simply, to call a spade a spade, and to
      essay a path, a “new path”, for restoring Party unity by means
      of direct talks between the two sections of the Party that arose after the
      Second Congress.

Excellent!It should have been done long ago. The party of the proletariat would
have been spared many months of excruciating, senseless, drawn-out crisis and
clandestine splitting. A slightly more serious and sincere desire to reckon
openly and frankly with the will of the Party functionaries working in Russia
would have helped Russian Social-Democracy out of its temporary state of
disintegration a full year ago. Yes, a year ago, even sooner.

Itwas at the end of January 1904. The Party Council met for the first time to
discuss the new situation in the Party and the Party crisis, with Plekhanov,
Axelrod, Martov, Vasilyev,[3]and Lenin attending. The last two,
members of the Central Committee and adherents of the Majority, saw clearly
that the Party hadin tactalready been split by the Minority and that
theclandestinecharacter of the split brought an unspeakable
corruption into the Party and demoralised it completely, in that it left one
side free to employ the most reckless “brawling” methods, while the
other side was in duty bound to abide by the general decisions. Theclandestinesplit of the Party (in its moral and political
significance and in its moral and political consequences) stands to an
open split
approximately in the same relation as clandestine adultery to open free love.

Thus,the above-mentioned Council members proposed a resolution (January 28,
1904), which was published in full by Shakhov (The Struggle for the
Congress, p. 81), in whichthe Bolsheviks, although outnumbered by
their opponents both on the Editorial Board and in the Council, the highest
Party body, were the first to raise their voice for peace in the Party, in view
of the crucial problems of the historic moment. The Bolsheviks drew there a
clear line between the necessary and inevitable ideological struggle, on the one
hand, and the “mean brawling”, disorganisation, pettyrivalry, boycott, etc., on the other. They asked the Party Council to call on
all Party members to “sink their petty differences as quickly as possible
and keep the ideological struggle once and for all within such limits as would
not lead to breaches of the Rules and not hamper practical activities and
constructive work”. We have so many Party members with short memories who
like to speak of the Party’s independent activity, but prefer idle gossip to a
study of the documents bearing on our Party split, that we urgently recommend
to all comrades desiring to have an understanding of Party affairs that they
take a look at page 81 of the pamphletThe Struggle for the Congress.

TheMensheviks, of course, rejected the resolution pro posed by Lenin and
Vasilyev and adopted (Plekhanov, Martov, and Axelrod) a resolution asking the
Central Committee to “co-opt” the Mensheviks. Since the Central
Committee had on November 26, 1903, agreed to co-opttwoMensheviks of
its own choice, this resolution of the Council could only mean thatthreedefinite individuals were being forced upon the C.C. Now the
entire Party knows from published documents (Lenin’sStatement)[2]that
it was because of these “three” that differences on points of
principle were invented and a “mean brawling” was engaged inup
to November 1904.In reply to the resolution on co-optation, Lenin and
Vasilyev submitted a dissenting report (Shakhov, p. 84), which likewise we
recommend to the uninformed and the forgetful to read for their own
edification. This report stated that these members of the C.C. “positively
and emphatically fail to see any honest and right way out of the present Party
dissensions, any way of stopping this impermissible struggle over the
composition of the centres other than the immediate convocation of a Party
congress

TheMensheviks, of course, are sabotaging the Congress. No reminders that at the
Congress compromises of all kinds are permissible, that otherwise the struggle
will assume the same revolting form as clandestine and mercenary love, produce
any effect on them. Incidentally, while such tactics may be natural and
understandable in the case of the Mensheviks, seeing that they have decided not
to be embarrassedby “mercenary love”, in the case of theconciliatorPlekhanov this is an enormous mistake, which has become obvious during the
    further progress of the crisis. Now anybody and everybody sees, and knows
    from the facts (namely, from the facts of Glebov[4]and Company’s
    subsequent behaviour) that had Plekhanov voted in January 1904 for a
    Congress, the Congress would have been convened very quickly andsuch an
      imposing conciliatory party would have been formed at the Congressthat it would have givennopreponderancewhateverto
    either the Majority or the Minority. We repeat, this is no mere conjecture,
    but a reflection that has beendefinitely confirmedby the
    subsequent course of events. But Plekhanov, too, preferred “mercenary
    love”, viz., a clandestine split, to an attempt to talk things over
    directly and openly until a definite agreement would be achieved.

Whatdo we see now? The Mensheviks have to accept, albeit timidly,
inconsistently, and belatedly, the solution proposed by the Bolsheviks. The
Bolsheviks stuck to their guns and succeeded in having the Congress called,
rightly maintaining that if the two “better halves” are not destined
to go on “cohabiting”, they must part openly.

Betterlate than never, of course, and we heartily welcome even this timid step
taken by the Council, its readiness to send two
“representatives”. But we absolutely object to the timidity and
inconsistency of this move. Why do you want to send to the Congress only two
representativesfrom the Council abroad, gentlemen? Why not
representatives fromallParty organisations? The members of the
Russian Bureau of Committees of the Majority have, as you know,invitedeverybody to the Congress, and have specially sent registered letters to the
Editorial Board, to the Council, and to the League. Why this strange and
inexplicable contradiction? On the one hand, when it came to securing ahypocriticalpeace with the three knights-errant of the Central
Committee (in deliberate violation of the will of the Committees of the
Majority) you did not rest content with sending “two
representatives” from the Council, butcanvassed all the
committees and
organisations of the Minority, as was openly stated in issue No. 83 ofIskra.On the other hand, when it comes to securingrealpeace
with the entire Party, you send for “direct talks” only two
representatives, and those from theCouncil abroad alone. Where are the Russian Mensheviks, with whom it is a
hundred times more important for us to come to terms than with a coterie oflittérateurs?Where are theworkers, the members and spokesmen
of the organisations—those very workers whom you incited against the
Second Congress, and about whose independent activity you shouted so much? Where
are Comrades Akimov and Brouckère, Makhov and Yegorov (or their friends and
comrades-in-idea), who, quite consistently from their point of view, supported
the Mensheviks without, however, compromising themselves, i.e., without taking
part in the co-optation squabbles? Where are Comrade Krichevsky and the other
former “Economists”, with whom you are supposed to have made peace,
as Plekhanov and many others have asserted in the newIskra?Where is
Comrade Ryazanov, your solidarity with whom on many points we can also
understand, but who neverthelessrefused to join the League, because it was
a Menshevik organisation?

Perhapsyou will say that all these comrades have no credentials? But then you
yourselves write a letter to the Congress“waiving all formalities”!

No,gentlemen, you will not satisfy us with half-measures, nor can you butter
our parsnips with fine words. If you really want, speaking frankly and without
“formalities”, to work together, in the ranks of a single
organisation, thencome to the Congress, all of you, and invite all the
comrades who are divided from usonlyin matters of ideology and not of
co-optation. Then reckon with the “good will of revolutionaries”,
to which you so fatuously referred when trying to hide from the Congress, and
whichalonecan positively and conclusively decide the fate of thewholeParty represented at the Congress. Then look for mediators
capable of influencing the “good will” ofall members of the
Congress.We shall heartily welcome every such mediator.

Knock,and it shall be opened unto you.... What we Bolsheviks have achieved by
our open struggle is that we have come very close to a possibly direct and
unequivocal way out of the crisis. We have succeeded in getting the Congress. We
have succeeded in getting the Mensheviks to change over from the
drill-sergeant methods of the Party Council that has been left without a party
to a straightforward, open offerof direct negotiations. Whether or not the Council will be sensible and honest
      enough to take the second step along the “new path”, we are
      convinced in any case that we shall win the complete victory of the Party
      principle over circle narrowness.

[1]See pp. 225-27 of this volume.—Ed.

[2]See present edition, Vol. 7, pp. 529-39—-Ed.—Lenin

[3]Vasilyev—theBolshevik F. V. Lengnik.

[4]Glebov—V.A. Noskov; was elected to the Central Committee by
 the Second Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. In the summer of 1904 he
 deserted the Bolsheviks and adopted a conciliatory attitude towards
 the Mensheviks.